Monthly Archives: June 2010

At this point, I am so flabbergasted and upset, I don’t really know what to do. When Woob turned two, we switched him from an in-home daycare to a larger, more structured daycare/preschool on Papa2Roo’s worksite. Prior to that we had him with the same caregiver, JuJu, since he was 8 weeks old. JuJu, though in a smaller home, always had her act together, was friendly, and showed a love for all the kids in her care. She was licensed, and rated a level 3 out of 4 on a certain daycare rating scale that helps parents decide/assess quality childcare (at that time, very few childcare centers, much less in home caregivers had even attempted to work at the rating). Top notch. But we knew it was time to make that switch and we felt REALLY bad about it, wrestled with it, and felt guilty that her feelings would be hurt. We even heard back from others that she wondered why we pulled Woob, even though we explained our reasons. Since that time, I have always recommended her to others when it seemed an appropriate place.

Fast forward 2 years. We were driving down the road, just Woob and I, to go pick up my nephew. We hadn’t been having any specific discussion, when Woob pipes up from the back seat.

“This is the road to JuJu’s house.”

Yes sweetie, it is. You have a good memory!

“She used to spank me. All the time.”

She used to spank you? JuJu?

(mumbles) “Yeah, I didn’t want to tell you.”

Oh, Sweetie, why not?

“Cause she really hurt my feelings.”

For the record, I 100% believe him because I have no reason not to. The kid’s memory is rock solid. He has never said anything like this before. He had nothing to gain by telling me this now. I am livid. I am sad. I am speechless. The person I trusted with my baby when I couldn’t be there. The person I referred other parents to.

I guess I should also say here that we don’t spank in my house. We don’t spank, swat, smack, pop, tap, hit or strike–whatever you want to call it, we don’t do it. JuJu was aware of this and we had this discussion, probably more than once, about our parenting. Do I think she beat him mercilessly? Absolutely not. But I believe that she in some way struck my child and I feel betrayed as a parent and angry for my kiddo. For goodness sakes, he was less than two years old, what could possibly warrant a spanking at that age anyway?

So, I sit here angry and wonder what is it that I should do, if anything?